Street repairs

City commissioners are gearing up to spend sales tax dollars that voters approved for street and infrastructure repairs.

Commissioners at their meeting Tuesday agreed to move ahead with $400,000 worth of design work to rebuild Kasold Drive from Clinton Parkway to 31st Street.

The project — which is expected to cost $6 million — could begin construction in early 2010.

It would include all new concrete pavement for the street, new curbs and gutters, and the completion of unfinished sidewalk work.

This summer the city also plans to spend about $290,000 in sales tax money to make major repairs to Ninth Street between Tennessee and Iowa streets.

Commissioners unanimously agreed to move ahead on the projects, although Commissioner Sue Hack was absent to grieve the recent death of her father-in-law.

Credit card review

The city manager’s office will take a closer look at when employees should be given city-issued Visa cards.

Commissioners reviewed a city audit that found 294 city employees have the city Visa cards, which can be used to make authorized purchases of less than $1,000.

City Manager David Corliss said the number of cards seemed a bit high, and that he would ask city department heads to rejustify why their employees need cards.

The audit generally found the city’s process for overseeing the credit card program is sound.

Vehicle purchases

Commissioners agreed to continue a purchasing policy that allows local auto dealerships to bid on most of the city’s vehicle purchases.

Prior to 2006, the city made most of its vehicle purchases through a regional purchasing cooperative. Local auto dealers found it hard to submit bids as part of that regional purchasing system.

A new report found the city would have saved about $11,000 over the last two years if the city had used the regional purchasing system. The city bought 39 vehicles during that two-year period.

Local auto dealers ended up being the successful bidder in five of the 15 bids the city conducted during the two-year period.